A Lake County Common Pleas Court jury will have the weekend to mull over what role Marvin Lambert Jr. might have played in his neighbor's death. Both the prosecution and defense called their last witnesses to the stand on Aug. 22, as Lambert, 25, faces murder charges in the Jan. 9 death of his former neighbor John A. Funari, 46, in Madison Township. On Aug. 25, the prosecution and defense teams are expected to make their closing arguments before handing the decision over to the jury. Lambert's father, Marvin Dale Lambert Sr., was the final witness of the day, and the only witness that the defense called to the stand. Assistant Lake County Public Defender Terry Hess asked the elder Lambert how his son looked on Jan. 10, the day after the alleged murder, specifically about any injuries he may have had. The elder Lambert testified he picked up his son that morning and the pair split wood for a few hours. He did not see any bruising, cuts or swelling on his hands or face. Hess then showed the witness pictures that police took of the younger Lambert on Jan. 11, which the prosecution contended showed swelling near the defendant's eye. The elder Lambert said that is how his son looked the week prior to the incident and that his face “is off a little bit.” “He's been beat a couple times,” the elder Lambert said. “Two times he was in the hospital.” He also noted that his son was not in a bad mood. “He was in good spirits. He seemed to talk a little more than usual,” the elder Lambert said. In cross-examination, Assistant Lake County Prosecutor Patrick Condon asked if the witness's wife, who has been present in court throughout the proceedings, spoke with him about the previous testimony. “Not that much, no,” the elder Lambert said. “There's a difference between 'Not that much' and 'No,' ” Condon replied. The elder Lambert further testified that he did not know the specifics of what he was going to be asked about in court. Two other witnesses, both called to the stand by the prosecution, also testified on Friday. Madison Township Police Detective Timothy Doyle, who investigated the case, continued his testimony from the previous day. Lake County Public Defender Charles Grieshammer, in his questioning of Doyle, focused on the fact that the detective lied numerous times to the defendant during interrogations. The court, though, previously explicitly told the jury that police are legally allowed to lie to suspects during interviews, a point that Grieshammer did note. “You did everything you could to get him to say, 'I did it,' ” Grieshammer said. “No, I did everything I could to get him to tell me the truth,” Doyle replied. The detective added that in his career's three murder investigations, he has not gotten any confessions, but he has received confessions in numerous other criminal investigations. Throughout the trial, the jury has been permitted to submit questions for the witnesses after the attorneys finished their questions. One of these questions asked Doyle why police did not recover a sweatshirt from the trash at Lambert's apartment when it was first learned of. “At that time, I didn't see it as evidentiary value,” Doyle said. The sweatshirt eventually was recovered on Jan. 21. This sweatshirt became a point of contention during Doyle's testimony. The sweatshirt had an amount of fecal matter on it when recovered from the trash bin. Lambert had told police that he did not have toilet paper, so he used the sweatshirt and then threw it out. But pictures of Lambert's apartment show multiple rolls of toilet paper, Doyle said. Additionally, this fact is relevant because previous witnesses testified that Funari's body had feces on it when the autopsy was performed. Police also did not specifically ask Lambert why he threw out the sweatshirt, instead of taking it to his father's with the rest of his dirty laundry, Doyle testified. Further questioning by Grieshammer showed that in Doyle's original police report did not state that Lambert claimed to use the sweatshirt in place of toilet paper. Karen Zavarella, a DNA analyst with the Lake County Crime Laboratory, testified for about two hours. She said that as a part of the investigation, she tested 33 items for nuclear DNA, which comes from both parents and is unique to each individual except for identical twins. Using known DNA samples from Funari, Lambert, and other neighbors Dale Vanderlip and Allen Gray, Zavarella compared their DNA profiles to DNA found on various items from the scene. Three swabs taken from beer bottles found in Funari's apartment all matched Lambert's DNA profile. Funari's boots, which were in his apartment, also had DNA from Lambert as well as from Funari. Zavarella added that the probability that a random Caucasian person unrelated to Lambert would have contributed this profile is 1 in 4.69 billion and 1 in 40.7 billion when looking at African-Americans. There are about 314 million people currently living in the United States. Zavarella also tested the jeans that Funari was wearing when he was found deceased. “When we observed the body at the crime scene, we noticed that the pants weren't in a natural position of an individual falling. They were actually on in a twisted fashion,” she said. “(The leg seams) were twisted almost as if someone may have grabbed him to move him or he was moved after he had fallen.” Both Funari's and Lambert's DNA were found on the pants, specifically in the area near the seams. Additionally, Lambert's DNA was found under the fingernails of Funari, Zavarella said. “Finding a foreign profile on fingernail swabs is rare. It's not frequently found,” she said. During cross-examination by Grieshammer, Zavarella testified that her testing could not reveal how Lambert's DNA was transferred to Funari or his clothes. She agreed that it was possible that since Lambert spent a lot of time in Funari's apartment, his skin cells were likely in Funari's apartment as dust. When Funari hit the floor, Lambert's DNA could have transferred to the jeans. “So the deposit of these skin cells may have something to do with this killing, or they may have nothing to do with this killing?” Grieshammer said. “That's correct,” Zavarella said.

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